THE THACKER PASS 6
Lithium Nevada Corporation has filed a lawsuit against Protect Thacker Pass and seven people, including Max Wilbert and Will Falk—co-founders of Protect Thacker Pass—for opposing the Thacker Pass lithium mine. Thacker Pass defendants are charged with Civil Conspiracy, Nuisance, Trespass, Tortious Interference with Contractual Relations, Tortious Interference with Prospective Economic Advantage, and Unjust Enrichment.
Read more about the lawsuit on our legal defense page, in our June 19, 2023 press release, and about our motion to dismiss the lawsuit in our August 21, 2023 press release.
The Thacker Pass defendants are seeking monetary donations to their legal defense fund. You can donate via credit or debit card or by check.
OUR STORY
Protect Thacker Pass is a grassroots movement to protect Thacker Pass and the McDermitt Caldera in Northern Nevada and Southern Oregon from mining projects like Lithium Nevada Corporation’s Thacker Pass Lithium Mine Project.
WHAT’S AT STAKE
We are in a crisis of climate change, biodiversity and habitat loss. Thacker Pass is critical wildlife habitat for threatened, endangered, and endemic species including the greater sage-grouse, pronghorn, Lahontan cutthroat trout, and golden eagles. Thacker Pass, known as Peehee Mu’huh in Paiute, is sacred to regional Native American tribes.
JOIN THE CAMPAIGN
It’s too late to prevent Phase 1 of the Thacker Pass Lithium Mine, but there are opportunities to help prevent Phase 2. More broadly, we hope to protect the rest of McDermitt Caldera from Southern Oregon down to Thacker Pass from catastrophic lithium mining.
You can help. You can donate to our campaign, volunteer with us, take direct action, help spread the word, and pressure decision makers.
WHAT WE WANT
The growth of industrial civilization is destroying the last wild habitats on Earth in a mad rush for resource extraction, causing biodiversity to plummet and destabilizing our climate.
Electric cars and grid-storage batteries are no more sustainable than fracked gas or tar sands. True sustainability means that we must use only what the Earth can regenerate, and that use must not degrade the planet.
With every indicator of ecological health heading in the wrong direction, our modern way of life will not last. That is the definition of “unsustainable.” We face a choice at Thacker Pass and around the world: will we sacrifice the planet for temporary material wealth, or will we make a change?
Our goal is to Protect Thacker Pass for the inherent, inalienable value of its land, water, biodiversity, and cultural importance.
Our demands:
- Rescind the Thacker Pass Lithium Mine Project permit.
- Designate the September 12, 1865 Thacker Pass Massacre Site and the Thacker Pass Traditional Cultural District under the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) — DONE!
- Withdraw Thacker Pass and the entire McDermitt Caldera from federal mine leasing.
- Reduce our nation’s dependence on cars as part of an emergency shift to a “degrowth” economic paradigm.
Thacker Pass is worth more as an intact, flourishing ecosystem. We will not stop fighting for Thacker Pass until the land is protected.
______________
We work in solidarity with regional Native American Tribes and traditional people, grassroots environmental organizations, and local communities who are affected by this project. We also stand in solidarity with communities facing off against mining and other extractive industries around the world.
Join Us! May 25, 6pm Orovada Community Hall NDEP Meeting for a show of opposition
Thacker Pass Warriors! Join us Tuesday May 25, 6pm at Orovada Community Hall in a show of opposition to the Thacker Pass Lithium Mine. The meeting is with Nevada Department of Environmental Protection and we need to show mass opposition to this mine, in solidarity...
Dispatches from Thacker Pass: Harms of the Thacker Pass Lithium Project
After reading Alexi Zawadzki’s April 28th article, “Lithium Nevada Corp’s CEO explains the benefits of the Thacker Pass Lithium Project,” I look out across the landscape of Thacker Pass and feel the wind blow across my skin. My goal in this essay is to debunk...
Notes from Peehee mu’huh (Thacker Pass) Part 5: Apprentice to Stopping This
By Rebecca Wildbear Two Bureau of Land Management officers came to visit. It was snowing and the wind was blowing hard. “Are you guys having fun yet?” one asked. “The weather’s always like this when we come,” the other said. Two cops showed up a week later. It was...


